Republicans are looking for a person to fill the place left by late Sen. John McCain to speak for national military leaders in the wake of President Donald Trump's decisions to bring troops out of Syria and cut combat forces in Afghanistan, and a former McCain spokesman thinks Sen. Lindsey Graham or Sen.-elect Mitt Romney are the only two who could fill the bill.
“We miss his voice and his actions,” John Weaver, a longtime political adviser to McCain, told The Hill. “Can you imagine if John was still the chairman of the Armed Services Committee? It would have been rather dramatic.”
Weaver said Graham, R-S.C., and Romney, R-Utah, are the only two people he would consider who would have the standing and willingness to speak truth to power, as "there's nobody else in our conference capable or willing to do that."
Corker, the Senate Republican Conference's main Trump foreign policy critic, is retiring in a few days, and Weaver said he thinks Romney would be "very vocal" on foreign policy issues.
Romney has referred Russia as the United States' main geopolitical foe, while Graham has introduced a resolution to urge Trump to flip back on Syria. He has also said he is willing to fight a Republican president who does not abide
Meanwhile, Sen. James Inhofe R-Okla., who now chairs the Armed Services panel is one of Trump's strongest allies in the Senate, and incoming Foreign Relations Committee Chairman Jim Risch, R-Idaho, usually backs Trump.
However, there are lawmakers like Sen. Pat Toomey, R-Pa., who think senators need to "step up" and take a bigger role on foreign policy.
Sandy Fitzgerald ✉
Sandy Fitzgerald has more than three decades in journalism and serves as a general assignment writer for Newsmax covering news, media, and politics.
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